I’d been planning on making a business card for Lostwatcher Games. It sat on my “to do” list for a while until I realized I was merely one week away from running a workshop at my local TTRPG convention, Roll Initiative Con, and I should definitely have them by then. So I quickly put together a draft, then got them printed at a local print shop.

But I wanted the Lostwatcher Games business card to be useful at the table, and inspired by the many “TTRPGs that fit on a business card” I decided to put a full set of random tables on the back of the card.

My Business Card

I call these tables Faction Friction. Their use is primarily for GMs to quickly create two competing factions (who can each approach the PCs). These tables can be used in any genre. They are condensed and adapted versions of two tables from the Faction Sparkbook (v2), namely the faction type table and the external faultlines table.

The focus of the Faction Friction tables isn’t just to define two factions, but to define their statuses and their relationship to each other, providing the GM with a strong spark for putting them at odds and embedding them within the game’s setting.

Below is a plain text version of the table, and is released under a CC-BY 4.0 license.

Faction Friction

Step 1: Roll to create two factions, their status, and their relationship

Step 2: Give each a name, symbol, and grudge (players do this if present)

Step 3: Have both factions approach the PCs for help against the other

5d10	They are… [x2]	who… [x2]	and with each other…
1	criminals	are precariously powerful	have ideological disagreements
2	a religious sect	are seemingly weak	share a relationship with a 3rd group
3	a crew	are part of a larger group	have overlapping identities
4	a local council	have splintered off from a group	compete over reputation
5	law enforcers	are ascendant	compete over precious resources
6	a school	are long established	compete over territory
7	a business	have unique skills	compete for favor with a larger group
8	rebels	are fracturing	are interdependent for resources
9	a clan	were disbanded but are reforming	are institutionally interdependent
10	a secret society	are undergoing a transformation	argue over something purely symbolic